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Imperfect Competition and Rents in Labor and Product Markets: The Case of the Construction Industry

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  • Kory Kroft
  • Yao Luo
  • Magne Mogstad
  • Bradley Setzler

Abstract

The primary goal of our paper is to quantify the importance of imperfect competition in the U.S. construction industry by estimating the size of rents earned by American firms and workers. To obtain a comprehensive measure of the total rents and to understand its sources, we take into account that rents may arise both due to markdown of wages and markup of prices. Our analyses combine the universe of U.S. business and worker tax records with newly collected records from U.S. procurement auctions. We first examine how firms respond to a plausibly exogenous shift in product demand through a difference-in-differences design that compares first-time procurement auction winners to the firms that lose, both before and after the auction. Motivated and guided by these estimates, we next develop, identify, and estimate a model where construction firms compete with one another for projects in the product market and for workers in the labor market. The firms may participate both in the private market and in government projects, the latter of which are procured through first-price sealed-bid auctions. We find that American construction firms have significant wage- and price-setting power. This imperfect competition generates a considerable amount of rents, two-thirds of which is captured by the firms. Lastly, we use the estimated model to perform counterfactual analyses which reveal how increases in the market power of firms, in the product market or the labor market, would affect the outcomes and behavior of workers and firms in the construction industry.

Suggested Citation

  • Kory Kroft & Yao Luo & Magne Mogstad & Bradley Setzler, 2020. "Imperfect Competition and Rents in Labor and Product Markets: The Case of the Construction Industry," Working Papers tecipa-666, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:tor:tecipa:tecipa-666
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    Cited by:

    1. David Berger & Kyle Herkenhoff & Simon Mongey, 2022. "Labor Market Power," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(4), pages 1147-1193, April.
    2. Francesco Amodio & Nicolás de Roux, 2021. "Labor Market Power in Developing Countries: Evidence from Colombian Plants," Documentos CEDE 019267, Universidad de los Andes – Facultad de Economía – CEDE.
    3. Amodio, Francesco & Medina, Pamela & Morlacco, Monica, 2022. "Labor Market Power, Self-Employment, and Development," IZA Discussion Papers 15477, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Thibaut Lamadon & Magne Mogstad & Bradley Setzler, 2022. "Imperfect Competition, Compensating Differentials, and Rent Sharing in the US Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(1), pages 169-212, January.
    5. Peter Hull & Michal Kolesár & Christopher Walters, 2022. "Labor by design: contributions of David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(3), pages 603-645, July.
    6. Dami'an Vergara, 2022. "Minimum Wages and Optimal Redistribution," Papers 2202.00839, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2022.
    7. Committee, Nobel Prize, 2021. "Answering causal questions using observational data," Nobel Prize in Economics documents 2021-2, Nobel Prize Committee.
    8. Alonso Alfaro Urena & Isabela Manelici & Jose P. Vasquez, 2021. "The Effects of Multinationals on Workers: Evidence from Costa Rican Microdata," Working Papers 285, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    9. Langella, Monica & Manning, Alan, 2021. "Marshall Lecture 2020: the measure of monopsony," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111444, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    10. Monica Langella & Alan Manning, 2021. "The measure of monopsony," CEP Discussion Papers dp1780, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    11. Lindner, Attila & Muraközy, Balázs & Reizer, Balázs & Schreiner, Ragnhild, 2022. "Firm-level technological change and skill demand," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117905, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Ihsaan Bassier & Arindrajit Dube & Suresh Naidu, 2020. "Monopsony in Movers: The Elasticity of Labor Supply to Firm Wage Policies," NBER Working Papers 27755, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Langella, Monica & Manning, Alan, 2021. "The measure of monopsony," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 113925, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Amano-Patiño, N. & Aramburu, J. & Contractor, Z., 2022. "Is Affirmative Action in Employment Still Effective in the 21st Century?," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2262, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    imperfect competition; monopsony; market power; rents; rent sharing; auction; procurement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
    • J42 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

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